If I had a dollar for every time I said "this one time at band camp," and someone either laughed or thought I was kidding I would be very rich. Now, let me get this straight: Band camp is nothing like what "American Pie" makes it out to be. It’s more of a weird mixture of total hell and the greatest time of your life. Basically, there are 300 kids who are all overtired, bored out of their minds, and trying to have some kind of fun while our director yells at us for not being able to form a diagonal. But, every night we would do something different that kept us from jumping out of our windows before our 8 a.m. lineup. So, would I want to go through heat exhaustion and constant dehydration again? Probably not. But I will remember some of the insane stuff (and terrible stuff) we did over the years for the rest of my life.

So here are some things that actually happen at band camp:

At least five kids a year pass out from the heat.

Some people just don’t understand that if you don’t eat breakfast at band camp, you will pass out and everyone will know about it. It’s not cute when you make everyone wait around outside for an extra 15 minutes because you were too stupid to eat a stupid pop tart and drink a glass of water.

Your friends will screw with you.

In my senior year alone, the girls I lived with put foam animals in our toilet, took our beds and threw them into the common area, pooped in our toilet and saran wrapped/duct taped it closed, and blew out our eardrums with the drum majors bullhorn/whistle.

There will be 17 different people crying from stress at any given time.

Being a rank leader, drum major, officer, or band president is hard and can stress you out more than your finals can. So naturally when things go badly and the director is angry, they snap and end up having a mental breakdown. It’s totally normal, and if you don’t have to comfort someone it doesn’t even feel like band camp.

Your legs will get toned AF.

Let me tell you, if you’re looking to lose weight just go to band camp and you’re golden. You march at least five miles a day and are given horrible food to eat. Who needs a month of workouts when you can lose 15 pounds in five days at band camp?

There will be drama.

People tend to get cranky when they spend every waking minute with each other for five days in a row and especially when they are running on two hours of sleep and a carton of rice. On the last day it might as be an MMA match because there will be hands thrown.

On your last night as a senior you will break down in tears.

A tradition in my old band is to play the show music and watch a slideshow from the past four years on your last night before a DJ comes and you can hang out with everyone. It is beyond nostalgic, and it’s at that point that you realize that you will never experience anything like it ever again.

You will never have another DJ night or pathetic freshman grind line. You will never be able to bond through exhaustion and miserableness with your peers like that again. But, it allows you to reflect on some of the amazing times you’ve had over the past four years and all of the great friends you’ve made in marching band. So don’t take a minute for granted, because I guarantee that a couple years down the line, in some way, you will at least miss band camp a little bit even if you won’t admit it to anyone.